Creeslough

We live midway between two villages, Dunfanaghy and Creeslough. Dunfanaghy is the more well-known of the two, until a week ago. I don’t have any photographs of Creeslough. It’s too deep into our lives. We were only go there three or four times a week. 

Creeslough is now forever associated with a catastrophic explosion that destroyed a small grocery store and the apartments above it.

We didn’t know how many had been killed, or who, for a few days. We still don't know the cause. "A tragic accident." That first weekend we waited. We sent money to a young couple we know who lost their home. We watched the news. When we talk to neighbors, we all say the same thing: "There are no words."

I listened to Soul Brew, a podcast by two local men. They mention the song, “Homes of Donegal,” and the lyric “I’d like to know how you’re gettin’ on,” the question we keep asking, and struggle to answer. 

Today The Irish Times published a wonderful story by Keith Duggan which says anything anybody could say, about Creeslough.

In the aftermath of Friday’s explosion at Lafferty’s fuel station, a big delegation of Ireland’s political leaders hurried to Creeslough to pay respects. The most obvious truth about Donegal may have occurred to them on the long journey to the northwest. If you want to see the place, then you must make the conscious effort to go there. For many, Donegal remains an abstract concept because you are never simply passing through.

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“I have staged the play among the mountains of my native Donegal, relating my characters to the rock and bog in that grim, beautiful land,” Peadar O’Donnell wrote after completing Adrigoole (1929), one of six novels he would write. The word “grim” may seem a harsh judgment but O’Donnell’s Donegal was before the advent of everyday motorcar use and centrally heated homes and telecommunications, when day-to-day existence, particularly through the depths of winter, must have been physically demanding. The migratory work experience became part of that — having to leave for work and coming home again has always been part of the Donegal reality.

The landscape and seascape become burnt on to the retinas of those who live there. While it’s true that the shop and accompanying businesses destroyed in the blast was very much a hive of activity in Creeslough, the village itself has plenty of stories of business and creativity born of people’s wish to make a life in the locality and to make things happen. A few weeks ago, the journalist Ciaran O’Donnell sat down with Lorcan Roarty to record an episode of his podcast, Business Matters. Roarty is the owner of the Wild Atlantic Camp, located just a short walk from the ruined fuel station. He was one of the first on the scene and helped some of those injured to safety.

The Coffee Pod, which was quickly transformed into a dispensary of free food and hot drinks in the wake of the disaster, is part of the complex. The glamping site was set up in 2013, in the middle of the recession. Roarty is a quantity surveyor by profession and after he qualified, he moved to the east coast of the United States for work. But his ambition was “to set up roots in Creeslough”. He bought Roses bar, in the centre of the village, in 2004.

Irish pub culture was thriving during the Boom, but it never fully recovered afterwards. The creation of the glamping site came about through a chance conversation. Roarty had been gifted the land by his parents and wanted to build something sustainable. Now, the facility has pods and cabins and is a convenient walk from the centre of the village. It opens all year round: that way, the company can give full-time employment to its permanent staff.

Roarty spoke of other advantages; daily buses to Galway, to Belfast, to Glasgow; the pending Michelin star for the Olde Glen bar and restaurant; the tourist attractions of Glenveigh National Park, of Doe Castle, Ards Forest Park, Muckish and Errigal mountains and the gorgeous beaches.

But it was when reflecting on the evolution of Creeslough over the past decade that Roarty became truly animated.

“Since we opened in 2013, Creeslough has come out of the Celtic Tiger recession quite well. It was no different from any rural village throughout Ireland in that it took a fair hit during the recession. But I do believe that its rebound has been remarkable from its lowest point to where we are today. There is a great spread of new businesses that we have opened here. If we start at the bottom of the village, we have a great new pharmacy that opened since the recession. There’s a fabulous cafe, the Huckleberry, coming up through the village. And Roses bar, we now serve food and that has filled a great gap for gastro-dining in the village.

“Moving up through the village, Scrumptious Ice Cream has opened and is a massive hit during the summertime. Gusto’s takeaway in Creeslough is famous, now, for its fast food and quality. We’ve a new 24-hour launderette opened. The Coffee Pod, serving gourmet sandwiches, has opened up. The Happy Camper, the post office in Creeslough which has been retained, Huckaboard, a really cool idea set up by Cathal Sheridan has taken off massively. We have great fitness facilities in the village now as well which Anton McFadden set up a couple of years ago. And that’s just what I’m naming out to you now, there are others as well. But for a small village like Creeslough, it is unbelievable success in the last 10 or 12 years.”

It’s a wonderful synopsis of people investing their faith in their place. And it is desperately sad to listen to now. This was the promise and vibrancy which the nightmarish explosion instantly stilled. An accident of such sudden, shocking violence and the ending of 10 lives would be relatively rare and unsettling event in a major city. But in a village the size of Creeslough, where everyone knows everyone, it inevitably leaves a daunting psychological and emotional burden. Everyone used the Applegreen; to get petrol, groceries, to call into the post office or the beauty salon. To use the cash machine; to have a sandwich at the deli.

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The sound of the blast was still reverberating when the people in the village began to respond. They haven’t stopped since.